Carleen
by Susan M. M
Summary: Gan was sent to the prison planet Cygnus Alpha, a limiter in his head, because he killed the Federation guard who killed his woman. How did the gentle giant of the Liberator become a killer, and why? Gan/OC, pre-Series A
1. Chapter 1

**Standard fanfic disclaimer that wouldn't last ten seconds in a court of law: these aren't my characters. I'm just borrowing them for, um, typing practice. Yeah, that's it, typing practice. Based on characters and situations created by the late Terry Nation. Originally published in Gambit #4 from Peacock Press, back in 1989, slightly edited in 2010.**

**Carleen**

by Susan M. M.

_A _Blake's Seven _story, based on characters and situations created by Terry Nation and the BBC_

"Carleen! " the barmaid exclaimed in surprise. "What are you doing here on your day off?"

"I'm meeting Olag, but he doesn't seem to be here yet," Carleen explained. "You haven't seen him, have you, Miri?"

"Your Olag's a hard one to miss. He's a big boy, he is," Miri chuckled. "You go and sit down, and if I see him I'll shoo him on over to your table."

Carleen nodded and found an empty spot. After several long minutes, Olag Gan approached, two mugs of cold beer in his hands.

"Hello, my sweet," Gan greeted her. "Your friend Miri gave me these. Said what your boss didn't know wouldn't hurt him - or our wallets." He set the mugs down and kissed her.

She kissed him back. "I was starting to get worried. What kept you?"

"Busy at the factory. Clean-up took longer than usual, and then traffic was terrible. I think there must have been an accident on one of the earlier trams. Came as quickly as I could. You didn't think I'd miss our anniversary, did you, now?"

"To us." The blonde lifted her beer mug in salute. "Six months together."

"Six wonderful months," Gan agreed.

The vidscreen over the bar was showing the evening news. The sound, as usual, was set unbearably loud, so as to be heard over all the conversations. The pub's customers merely spoke louder, so as to be heard over the vidscreen.

"The dissident leader Roj Blake confessed and repented of his crimes today," the anchorman announced. "He admits to having been led astray -"

"Turn that racket off," one of the pub's patrons ordered in slurred tones.

"Leave it on," Gan countermanded.

The bartender looked at the small, half-drunken man who'd asked to have the vidscreen turned off, then took a look at Gan - nearly two meters tall, easily more than 120 kilos and not a milligram of that fat. Discreetly, he ignored the first customer's request.

"When'd you start taking an interest in politics, luv?"

"Oh, I don't care about that. Hardly any of our business, is it? But the soccer scores should be on in a few minutes. I have a fiver on today's game."

*** ### *** ### ***

The building manager frowned. "There's a housing shortage, or hadn't you heard?"

"Do you at least have a waiting list?" Carleen asked plaintively.

"We've got a list over two years long. There's no vacancies," the manager repeated impatiently. "Now out, and stop wasting my time."

Outside the apartment complex, Carleen sighed. "That's the fifth one."

"Don't worry, luv," Gan reassured her. "We'll find a place of our own, sooner or later."

"Later," Carleen predicted glumly.

*** ### *** ### ***

"Happy Birthday!"

Carleen tore into her present - or tried to.

"Open it," Gan urged.

"I'm trying, I'm trying. You wrap as though you owned a paper factory," she teased. Finally, she broke through the interminable wrappings and opened the box. She tried to hide her dismay as she stared at what had to be the ugliest necklace in the world, possibly in the entire galaxy.

Gan's sister, if he had had one, might have been able to wear it without being overwhelmed by its bulk. It would take a woman with a very Junoesque figure to wear something that big and not look ridiculous. On Carleen's petite form ...

It was also the gaudiest, most ostentatious thing she had ever seen. The huge neon-orange plastic pendant, surrounded by polychromatic beads and false rhinestones, hung from three chains, braided together. Each chain was of a different colored metal. It went beyond tacky; it was atrocious.

"It's beautiful, darling," she lied. "Thank you."

*** ### *** ### ***

Carleen's blonde curls sprawled over the pillow. Gently, so as not to wake her, Gan reached over to caress them. It was her hair - so unfashionably long! - that had attracted his attention the first time they'd met. He'd gone to the pub after work for a beer and a sandwich, like always. The new barmaid walked past, and he and his mates from the factory glanced up, staring at the long golden hair that fell almost to her shapely rear. Somebody called to her for a drink. She'd turned around to take the order, and Olag Gan stared into her face. He was enthralled. He forgot his beer, his sandwich, even Jorj Daley. Suddenly he'd winced in pain, looking up to see Jorj grinning triumpantly, and he realized he'd just lost his first arm-wrestling match in ten years. Then he looked at her again, and forgot the pain and the defeat and everything - everything except her face.

Gan looked down at her now, lying beside him on their bed. She was still as beautiful as she'd been the day they met three years ago.

*** ### *** ### ***

"I love it here," Carleen exclaimed. "I reminds me of home."

Gan glanced around the park. "You see that flower?" He pointed to a bush with one lonely pink blossom.

"Which? That last camellia over there?"

"Uh-huh." He nodded. He hadn't know the flower's name before. "I give it to you. I'd go and pick it for you, if it weren't for him."

Carleen looked over at the police sentry. "On Zephron, flowers were so plentiful we didn't need to guard them. Anyone could pick them."

"Homesick, my sweet?"

"Not when I'm with you." It was only half a fib. When she was with Olag, the homesickness wasn't nearly as bad. He was the best thing about Earth and its domes.

*** ### *** ### ***


	2. Chapter 2

**Standard fanfic disclaimer that wouldn't last ten seconds in a court of law: these aren't my characters. I'm just borrowing them for, um, typing practice. Yeah, that's it, typing practice. Based on characters and situations created by the late Terry Nation. Originally published in Gambit #4 from Peacock Press, back in 1989, slightly edited in 2010.**

**Carleen**

by Susan M. M.

A _Blake's Seven_ story, based on characters and situations created by Terry Nation and the BBC

Carleen flung herself on Gan and showered him with kisses.

"Well, you're glad to see me, aren't you?" Gan gently disengaged himself from her embrace long enough to shut the door. "Now then, where were we?"

Instead of returning to his arms, she ran to the table. She picked up a white card and waved it in his face. "Look, look!"

"Well, hold it still and I will," he protested. "What is it?"

"My clearance certificate. Our clearance certificate. The pregnancy permission form!"

"What?" He picked her up and twirled her around merrily. The card fell unnoticed to the floor. After half-crushing her petite form in a bear hug, he looked down at her and said, "Woman, you're overdressed."

"What?"

Gan looked toward the bedroom door.

"Olag, I only got the clearance a few hours ago. I haven't had time to go to the doctor yet," Carleen explained.

"Practice." He grinned lasciviously. "Unless you want to go out and celebrate?" he asked as an afterthought.

"No, I don't need to go out to celebrate." Blushing, she took his hand and led him to the bedroom. "After all, practice makes perfect."

Gan reached down and gently kissed her lips. "You're already perfect."

*** ### *** ### ***

"Olag, you really didn't need to take off work to take me to the doctor. I could have managed on my own."

"I know you could have, luv, but I wanted to come. And my supervisor was very understanding when I explained things to him. He likes you, he does, you made a good impression on him at the New Year's party." Gan smiled, remembering proudly how his supervisor, in an alcohol-induced fit of whimsy, had described Carleen as "an elfin beauty." Gan wasn't quite sure what that meant, but his supervisor had obviously thought it was a good thing.

"I'm excited, and," Carleen confessed, "a little nervous."

"Don't be," Gan told her. "They're just going to restore your fertility, that's all. It won't even hurt."

"Having a baby's easy. What about raising it?" She looked up at him. "I don't want to abandon my baby to some crèche."

"Why, a crèche is the best place in the world for a baby," Gan replied. "Playmates its own age, and trained nursery-attendants - no better place for a young one."

_On Zephron, most families raise their own children,_ Carleen thought. But Earth wasn't Zephron, so she kept her mouth shut.

"Tell you what, though," he continued. "I stand a decent chance of making section chief at the factory. If I do, the extra money might be enough to let you quit the pub and stay home with the baby. Or at least work only part time."

They walked on towards the clinic as they talked. The crowds along the sidewalk grew thicker.

"You'll make a wonderful father," she predicted.

"I'll try."

"The colonies aren't so crowded as Earth," Carleen pointed out. "If we moved to Zephron, or one of the other colony-planets, we wouldn't need clearance certificates. We could have as many children as we wanted."

"Let's start with one, eh, and see how it goes. Speaking of crowded, it certainly is busy today. I wonder what all the fuss is?"

"Re-elect Tomis Welles to the Terran Parliament," they heard. "Welles is the candidate for you. Re-elect Tomis Welles."

Ahead of them, they saw a man dressed in clothes that would have cost half a year's pay for most of the people in this neighborhood. Private guards, most of them off-duty policemen, surrounded him. One them shouted campaign slogans through a loudspeaker. Part of the crowd was caused by the long line at the table dispensing free beer and election pamphlets. The Federation still maintained the outward forms of democracy, and members of parliament had to be elected by the general public, although no candidate won or lost without the High Council's knowledge and consent.

"Political rally. Let's try to go around," Gan suggested.

Carleen nodded her head in agreement. "Politics bore me."

They fought against the flow of traffic, and only Gan's gargantuan stature permitted them to make as much progress as they did.

"If we can just get past this lot," he said, "it should be easy going from here on. We'll be at the clinic in a few minutes."

"Get back, make room there," one of the guards ordered. He pushed Carleen roughly out of the way.

"Hey! Who do you think you're shoving?" Even after four years on Earth, she was still too much of a colonial to submit meekly to the whims of authority.

"Don't talk back to me, woman." The guard shoved her again, harder.

Carleen slipped on a wet patch on the sidewalk where someone had spilled a drink. She skidded, fell, and hit her head against a lamp post with a sickening thud.

Gan hurried to her side. He stared at the angle of her neck, the blood spurting from her scalp.

"You've killed her," he whispered, stunned. Then he roared, "You've killed her!"

He rushed toward the guard. Before anyone had time to react, his hands were around the guard's throat. The other guards had to knock Gan out before they could unpry his fingers from the man's neck.

"Call an ambulance," someone yelled.

"Don't bother," one of the guards said. "It's too late."

Welles swore. Incidents of this nature would cost him votes.

*** ### *** ### ***

The surgeon reached for his laser-scalpel. He turned it on, testing and adjusting the beam.

"The patient is completely under," the anesthetist announced.

"What's that on the monitor?" an eager intern asked curiously.

The senior nurse scolded him for interrupting, but the surgeon smiled behind his mask. Federation schools did not encourage independent initiative. Interns who dared to ask questions were rare. They generally made the best doctors, if they didn't make the mistake of applying their question-asking habits to non-medical matters.

"Heavy REM and alpha brainwave activity. He's dreaming," the surgeon explained. "I hope it's a good one. Once that's implanted," he gestured to the limiter lying on the sterile instrument table, "he'll never dream again. That's one of the lesser-known side effects."

"I wonder what he did to deserve it," the intern mumurred.

The surgeon frowned. That sort of question one shouldn't ask. "That's none of our business. Now observe how I open the skull. Compare this with the two mutoid modifications we did earlier today..."


End file.
